The dookie caper My assignment seemed simple enough. I was to climb a six-foot high chainlink fence under cover of darkness. Once over the fence, I’d have to cover about 20 yards to a sewage truck, crawl underneath said truck and place a magnetic GPS tracking device somewhere along its frame. Piece of cake.
Why on earth would a game warden be crawling underneath a poop-hauler to do such a thing, you ask? Well, about 17 years into my career, I promoted to Sergeant Investigator of Environmental Crimes. I was still a game warden, but instead of concerning myself with the normal game-wardening stuff, I, along with five other members of the TPWD Environmental Crimes Unit, investigated felony environmental crimes all over the State of Texas. Most of our cases dealt with keeping “waters of the State” clean.
Which brings me back to that assignment I was telling you about. Allegedly, the owner/driver of that dookie dumper truck behind that chain-link fence wasn’t fond of paying to dispose of his daily porta- potty haul in a facility permitted for such activity. Nope. Instead, he was said to take advantage of whatever secluded drain-hole, creek bed of other area of convenience to dump his dirty load. He HAD to be stopped!
As a fancy sergeant in the environmental crimes unit, I didn’t have to bother myself with trivial things like “wearing a uniform” or “driving a marked patrol vehicle”. Let’s face it, game wardens are sneaky, but if one were to pull up to an industrial park in a marked vehicle and jump a fence to crawl under a pooper- truck, he or she might get noticed. Midnight on recon-night one, I park my truck down the street and walk by the gates to check out the situation. I immediately identified a huge problem; a large white pit bull came snarling up to meet me at the gate. Yep – the doodoo just got deeper.
Day two – I headed down to the store and got me a big bag of dog treats. Each treat was a multi-ingredient mash of meat substitutes and preservatives made to look like a strip of bacon. I was ready for recon-night two.
For the next five nights, I went through the same routine: I parked the truck down the street, walked up to the fence and shoveled as many strips of bacon- ish goodness through the chain link as that dog would eat. By day seven, I felt I’d made a friend. My confidence grew even more when I contacted the non-dookie-driver-affiliated owner of the lot and found out that he owned the dog, too. He said he’d chain the dog up while I did my dirty work.
Night seven – go time. Dressed in black, I put on a pair of rubber gloves, grabbed the GPS tracker and hopped the fence. No dog in sight, so I scampered to the truck, took a deep breath, kept my mouth shut and crawled underneath. I turned to lie on my back to scrape the mud(?) off the truck frame to attach the device, and I heard rustling from above and behind my head. The dog came into my view about the time he was close enough to slobber on me. I laid there, neck fully exposed, and mustered, “Guh, guh, good dog.”
The owner had indeed chained the dog – right behind the truck. As I slowly attached the device before crawling out, the dog just watched and wagged its tail. The bacon-ish treats had paid off.
I never caught the truck owner dumping the poo where he wasn’t supposed to. You win some, you lose some depending on your perspective, I guess. For me, I’ll call getting out from under that truck with my neck intact a definite win.
Jon Brauchle spent 29 years as a game warden.
